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Carl Jung - The collective unconscious

Carl Jung - The collective unconscious: Encyclopedia II - Carl Jung - The collective unconscious

Jung's concept of the collective unconscious has often been misunderstood. In order to understand this concept, it is essential to understand his idea of the archetype, something foreign to the highly rational, scientifically-oriented Western mind. Here is a useful analogy: the collective unconscious is the DNA of the human psyche. Just as all humans share a common physical heritage and predisposition towards specific physical forms (like having two legs, a heart, etc.) so d ...

Carl Jung: Encyclopedia II - Carl Jung - The collective unconscious

Carl Jung - The collective unconscious

However, unlike the quantifiable information that composes DNA (in the form of coded sequences of nucleotides), the collective unconscious is composed of archetypes. In contrast to the objective material world, the subjective realm of archetypes can not be adequately understood through quantitative modes of research. Instead it can only begin to be revealed through an examination of the symbolic communications of the human psyche—in art, dreams, religion, myth, and the themes of human relational/behavioral patterns. Devoting his life to the task of exploring and understanding the collective unconscious, Jung discovered that certain symbolic themes existed across all cultures, all epochs, and in every individual.

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The collective unconscious", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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